Live Fast, Die Young: Anticipated Early Death and Adolescent Violence and Gang Involvement

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Document Title: Live Fast, Die Young: Anticipated Early
Death and Adolescent Violence and Gang
Involvement
Author(s): Arna L. Carlock
Document Number: 250425
Date Received: December 2016
Award Number: 2014-IJ-CX-0008
This resource has not been published by the U.S. Department of
Justice. This resource is being made publically available through the
Office of Justice Programs’ National Criminal Justice Reference
Service.
Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and
do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
Live Fast, Die Young: ­

Anticipated Early Death and ­

Adolescent Violence and Gang Involvement ­

by
Arna L. Carlock
A Dissertation ­

Submitted to the University at Albany, State University of New York ­

in Partial Fulfillment of ­

the Requirements for the Degree of ­

Doctor of Philosophy ­

School of Criminal Justice ­

2016 ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Live Fast, Die Young: ­

Anticipated Early Death and ­

Adolescent Violence and Gang Involvement ­

by
Arna L. Carlock
COPYRIGHT 2016 ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Abstract

Strategies employed by criminal justice agencies to reduce offending often focus on deterrence,
with policies relying on the threat of punishment to discourage individuals from crime. However,
such strategies will fail if individuals do not fear these consequences, or when potential rewards
of offending outweigh the risks. According to life history theory, adolescents with a dangerous or
unpredictable childhood environment discount the future and engage in risky behaviors because
they have little to lose. Many adolescents embody this “live fast, die young” mentality,
particularly those already at risk of delinquency due to other factors. The scientific literature
refers to this mindset as fatalism, future discounting, or anticipated early death (AED). Despite
the indication that AED is a crucial correlate of delinquent activity, only recently have
criminologists begun to directly examine the relationship. To address this gap in the literature,
this dissertation analyzes two longitudinal datasets. One dataset, the National Longitudinal Study
of Adolescent Health (Add Health), offers a nationally representative sample, while the
Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) provides a sample of at-risk youth in Rochester,
New York. Structural equation modeling quantifies adolescent AED in each dataset. The use of
two data sources strengthens the reliability and validity of the latent variable’s measurement. I
study the effects of the latent AED measures on adolescent violence and gang activity, finding
that higher levels of AED correspond to a greater likelihood of violence and gang activity, with
the relationships often mediated by low self-control. In an attempt to determine the causal
ordering of AED and risk-taking behaviors, I exploit the longitudinal nature of the RYDS data by
estimating autoregressive cross-lagged panel models. Findings lend support to life history
theory’s assumption that AED predicts risk-taking behavior; I find little evidence that violence or
gang activity cause AED.
iii ­
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Acknowledgments
�

To avoid making this list of those to whom I owe gratitude overly long, I will instead make it
grievously short: Thank you to the family, friends, and faculty who have supported me along the
way.
Funding Acknowledgments
This dissertation was supported by the National Institute of Justice Graduate Research
Fellowship 2014-IJ-CX-0008 and the University at Albany Initiatives for Women.
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan
Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice
Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative
funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald
R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to
obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website
(http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921
for this analysis.
This research also uses data from the Rochester Youth Development Study
(RYDS). Support for the Rochester Youth Development Study has been provided by the Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (86-JN-CX-0007), the National Institute on Drug
Abuse (R01DA005512), and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9123299). Work on this
project was also aided by grants to the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the
University at Albany from NICHD (P30HD32041) and NSF (SBR-9512290).
Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily
represent the official position or policies of the funding agencies.
iv ­
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... ix

�
List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... x

�
CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................. 1

�
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1

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CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................................. 4

�
Theoretical Framework and Literature Review .................................................................. 4

�
Life History Theory and Future Discounting...................................................................... 4 ­

Review of the Literature ..................................................................................................... 9 ­

Anticipated early death. ................................................................................................ 9 ­

Gangs and violence. .................................................................................................... 21 ­

Self-control. ................................................................................................................ 26 ­

Current Study .................................................................................................................... 28 ­

Theoretical Model ............................................................................................................. 30 ­

CHAPTER 3 ................................................................................................................................ 38

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Methods .................................................................................................................................. 38

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Data and Samples .............................................................................................................. 38 ­

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). ..................... 38 ­

The Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS). .................................................. 40 ­

Analytical Approach ......................................................................................................... 41 ­

Objective 1: Operationalize a quantifiable measure of AED. ..................................... 41 ­

Objective 2: Examine the impact of AED on individual violence and gang activity. 44 ­

Objective 3: Determine the causal ordering of AED and delinquent risk-taking ­

behaviors (i.e., violence and gang activity). ............................................................... 45 ­

v ­
This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Observed Variables ........................................................................................................... 47 ­

Missing Data and Structural Equation Modeling .............................................................. 53 ­

Available case analysis with robust weighted least squares. ...................................... 54 ­

Summary ........................................................................................................................... 56 ­

CHAPTER 4 ................................................................................................................................ 62

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Measurement of Anticipated Early Death .......................................................................... 62

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Add Health ........................................................................................................................ 63 ­

Second-order factor analysis exemplar. ...................................................................... 63 ­

Differences by sex....................................................................................................... 66 ­

Evaluation of reliability and validity. ......................................................................... 67 ­

RYDS ................................................................................................................................ 70 ­

Second-order factor analysis. ...................................................................................... 70 ­

Differences by sex....................................................................................................... 71 ­

Evaluation of reliability and validity. ......................................................................... 71 ­

Summary ........................................................................................................................... 72 ­

CHAPTER 5 ................................................................................................................................ 82
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AED and Violent Behavior ................................................................................................... 82

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Add Health ........................................................................................................................ 82 ­

Violence prevalence. ................................................................................................... 82 ­

AED measurement revisited. ...................................................................................... 86 ­

RYDS ................................................................................................................................ 87 ­

Violence prevalence. ................................................................................................... 88 ­

Violence variety. ......................................................................................................... 91 ­

AED measurement revisited. ...................................................................................... 93 ­

vi ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 96 ­

CHAPTER 6 .............................................................................................................................. 107
�

AED and Gang Membership.............................................................................................. 107
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Gang Membership ........................................................................................................... 107 ­

Differences by sex..................................................................................................... 109 ­

Duration of Gang Membership ....................................................................................... 111 ­

Stability of Gang Membership ........................................................................................ 113 ­

Summary ......................................................................................................................... 114 ­

CHAPTER 7 .............................................................................................................................. 121
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Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Models .................................................................... 121
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AED and Violence Prevalence........................................................................................ 122 ­

Differences by sex..................................................................................................... 124 ­

AED and Gang Membership ........................................................................................... 126 ­

Differences by sex..................................................................................................... 127 ­

Summary ......................................................................................................................... 128 ­

CHAPTER 8 .............................................................................................................................. 134
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Summary and Discussion ................................................................................................... 134
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Study Overview .............................................................................................................. 134 ­

Summary of Results ........................................................................................................ 137 ­

Measurement of AED. .............................................................................................. 137 ­

AED and violence. .................................................................................................... 138 ­

AED and gang membership. ..................................................................................... 139 ­

Causal ordering of AED and risk-taking behavior. .................................................. 141 ­

Implications..................................................................................................................... 143 ­

vii ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
Limitations and Future Research .................................................................................... 146 ­

Theory. ...................................................................................................................... 146 ­

Measurement. ............................................................................................................ 148 ­

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 150 ­

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 151
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APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................ 163
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Coding of Project Variables by Dataset ............................................................................ 163
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APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 168
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RYDS Observed Variables Descriptive Statistics ............................................................ 168
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APPENDIX C ............................................................................................................................ 172
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Comparisons of RYDS Male and Female SEM Coefficients (z scores) .......................... 172
�

viii ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice
List of Figures
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Figure 2.1. Theoretical Model of AED, Violence, and Reproductive Behavior .......................... 36 ­
Figure 2.2. Cross-Lagged Model of AED and Risk-Taking Behavior ......................................... 37 ­
Figure 4.1. Second-Order Measurement Model ........................................................................... 74 ­
Figure 7.1. Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Model of AED and Violence Prevalence ­
(Standardized Coefficients) ............................................................................................ 130 ­
Figure 7.2. Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Models of AED and Violence Prevalence by Sex ­
(Standardized Coefficients) ............................................................................................ 131 ­
Figure 7.3. Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Model of AED and Gang Membership ­
(Standardized Coefficients) ............................................................................................ 132 ­
Figure 7.4. Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Panel Models of AED and Gang Membership by Sex ­
(Standardized Coefficients) ............................................................................................ 133 ­

ix ­

This resource was prepared by the author(s) using Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice